I'm only upt to 32 on my Dirge so far but to me it seems like our most useful song is the Claras line. An AoE debuff that lasts 10 minutes and drops the mitigation against physical damage by over 400, is huge. When I drop that bad boy on mobs we go to town even on red group mobs. If I had to pick our most fun spell it would be JMA. With Sow or pf and jboots and some other buffs you can really move. Is the speed useful for combat? no but it's fun as hell. Lanet's is also nice of course, but clara's mitigation debuff is not something that should be ignored.
I have to say once you play a dirge until level 30, then you're pretty much spoiled in terms of speed. I simply cannot find the patience to play any other class because it's so painfully slooooow to move.
Oh, and my favorite skill... Don't know if it qualifies as a Dirge skill, but I love Vhalen's! Basically an unbreakable short duration root. Excellent for soloing or when you're the puller in a group. Pull with Lanet's, root with Vhalen's, hit with Thuri's sapping shot, followed by Luda's wicked warble. Lanet's goes off. Then you can either let the mob approch and finish it off, or send it wandering around with Garsin's. Also useful in combat: Hit Vhalen's, take a couple of steps backwards and have a little rest while you keep hitting the mob with long distance attacks. Using it regularly at 33 even it's deep gray as a level 10 song.
I just found another use for Vhalens today: You're in a group, happily backstabbing and DPSing away. Mob goes aggro on you. You switch off auto attack, hit the mob with Vhalen's, take a few steps to get out of its range, mob turns back to tank. Tried this a couple of times today, worked every single time. I love this spell!
I have to agree that Garsin's Funeral March being my fav also.. When the mob is running away there is nothing like getting the ranged hit with a powerful bow and any other hard hitting ranged attack. Also it does work really well in group situations.. If your group is being hit with multiple mobs you can force one to leave the fight for a little while while you and your group dispatch the others. The bad part is when you make them run and they keep running and don't come back ( don't laugh it has happened to me to many times to count). My second fav is is a tie between Lanet's Excruc Scream and Thuri's Sapping Shot. Don't know how many time Lanet's Excruc Scream has saved my butt.. Both the mob and I are down in the red and I start to back off and the mob is still hitting me and it almost has me dead when the scream goes off and kills the mob before he kills me. And Thuri's Sapping Shot because how else can you do close to 300 points with a bow with out having the biggest bow in the game. Two shots at a time doing close to 150 each shot plus returning some power to boot (love the rebate on power the spell gives).
I took Denon's at level 10 instead of Vhalen's... it sounded good at the time, not realizing that it was on the same timer as Quick Strike. Now that Denon's is gray to me at 26, I'm wishing I had Vhalen's to play with. Didn't they offer a respec a while back? I wonder if that is still available... What I like about the dirge is versatility. Able to use both stealth and speed, both up-close stealth attacks and ranged damage attacks, both self-buffs and mob debuffs... basically a little bit of everything, which I find nice since I solo 99.9% of the time. Favorite spell I think is also Lanet's. I like to open with that and then cast again about half way through the fight on tougher mobs... it sounds like this will work nicely with Vhalen's as well. I need to check on that respec... Message Edited by Broon Ale on 06-03-2005 12:37 PM
Ad3 Songster's Luck +6 to my attack & defense skills is great. In conjunction with my lvl 10 training that lowers a mob's attack skills by 5 I can help my group pull off some surprising outcomes. :smileyhappy:
Suck it Nob, that time you deserved the one star. =D Back on topic though, I just found out how much I actually *like* having a fear attached to my new stealth attack. I know it's been panned, but holy cow! I whack the mob, it runs away, I get to shoot it with my bow (hits HARD!) smack it with Lanet's, and debuff it, all while having gotten that initial sneak attack in. And ti's like, free damage. And so far, it hasn't broken on me, unlike our normal fear... I have to say, I hadn't really thought it would have a benefit. And given how few "adds" you get in EQ2 from driveby mobs, I've gotten some decent xp off this.
I don't play with SK's or assassins much. Can they raise my group's skills AND lower the mob's skills? Besides even if they could since my guild doesn't have any high levels of those classes I guess I still fill a roll heh. I guess if you are in a guild that can field each and every class, at high levels, then I can see why you dislike being a jack of all trades type character...combined they all outdo you in specific areas...:smileywink: Message Edited by Fromingo on 06-07-2005 12:25 PM
